Sunday
Here's another example of me hanging out with groups of classmates I didn't usually hang out with. I was friends with all these kids, but other than Gerald, I rarely interacted with them outside of school. And here I am, going bowling and watching The Muppet Movie with them. It was a blast.
I was really close friends with Oumi in elementary school, actually. He was another smart kid who wasn't part of the cool kid clique. We drifted apart in middle school, and somehow barely saw each other in high school, despite both being in a lot of honors classes. However, where I gravitated toward the arts, he was more into math and science. Despite this brief hangout, we didn't reconnect and become friends again. Our paths remained separate. Such is life.
Monday
I don't remember where Brandon went, but I guess he was back. Which was obviously a good thing.
Kafein, in Evanston, was one of the places one of my circles of friends (the one that included Suzanne and eventually Brandon) would go whenever we wanted a change of pace from Barrington and the immediate environs. It was -- and still is -- a coffee shop in Evanston just a couple blocks from Northwestern. It was -- and might still be -- a vital "cool" hangout for high school kids wanting to seem sophisticated and mingle with college kids. Looking back, I wonder just how many of the kids there were actually in college; I'm sure we weren't the only high schoolers from north and northwest suburbs who had that idea.
Anyway, it was an important alternative to Yvette's and Denny's and Hillcrest, and it had a hip alternative vibe that we really dug. And it took an hour to get there, so you had to weigh whether the ride was worth the time, since you'd have to get back at a reasonable hour. Nine on a weeknight once would have been way too late. Now that we were graduates, and since it was summer, it was just fine. That cake was unbelievable.
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